Six feet under
by saltedshotgun
Summary: Dean escapes from the rack but not from Hell. He wanders and finds Lucifer's Cage and it looks like the ocean at sunrise.


**Six feet under  
**Dean, Lucifer. Gen.  
**  
**_Summary:_ Dean escapes from the rack but not from Hell. He wanders and finds Lucifer's Cage and it looks like the ocean at sunrise.  
_Notes:_ Fic is unbeta'd, english is not my first language.  
_Disclaimer:_I only wish they were mine.

* * *

Hell is busy and agonizingly desolate; hot and freezing; obnoxiously, painfully loud and achingly silent.

Time is liquid, fluid in Hell – seconds drag like years and years seem like seconds in retrospective.

They have ways how to keep things fresh – forms of torture unknown to men and impossible to execute on Earth. Pain has this dream-like, nightmarish quality to it in Hell – you can feel it but you can't rationalize it, or will it to go away, or think about anything else. Pain is simply all that exists, all that matters.

* * *

Much like Heaven, although Dean doesn't know that, Hell isn't a never-ending place full of the tortured and the torturing – it's multidimensional, penetrating, and each one is different.

Dean's hell looks like a burning building, like solitude, like his brother's screams in the darkness, blood of everyone he couldn't save in his life dripping off the tips of his fingers, his father's disappointed eyes and the smell of his mother's flesh.

Hell is Alistair looking at him with bottomless holes where eyes should be, smiling as Dean's blood trickles from his teeth. His skin is angry red and charred, it's color changing and shifting with each movement, lips unmoving but voice sharp and loud in Dean's head.

"Just say it and I will stop. It will all stop," he says and it comes at Dean from every side while he breaths through his nose and feels the hot air leave his torn lungs through chest ripped like an old piece of cloth.

"Just one little word," Alistar says and Dean shakes his head even though it pulls at his mauled flash and says no, blood pouring up his throat, through his teeth, down his chin.

* * *

They leave Dean alone for ages at a time, sometimes in darkness and sometimes burning, sometimes whole and sometimes broken and it always feels like eternity. Dean cries for Sam and for his father and for his mom, cries for himself because he's alone and helpless and forever never seemed so infinite. He cries and when the demons come back they laugh at him and Dean's almost happy to see them because at least he's not so alone now.

They torture him for another eternity and Dean cries with relief when they leave again.

* * *

It takes Dean months before he's able to slip off the rack, before he finds a way how to cheat the chains that burn his skin. He stumbles to the ground and then he's falling through what seems like a living nightmare.

* * *

Hell is a desert. Dean's hungry and thirsty and alone, mumbling to himself. The ground burns his feet as they drag across, the air feels hot and dry but Dean is still cold, like sitting in the freezing winter wind for too long.

* * *

Hell is boiling water mixed with ashes and blood, and mud smelling like rotten bodies and tar. Dean drifts through it, lets it swallow him whole and breaths it in until it fills his lungs and Dean drowns.

* * *

He wakes up and everything is mild. Not too dark and not too bright, the light is golden instead of agressive red, the air soothing on Dean's skin. Dean blinks and his eyes are heavy with fatique, eyelids glued together.

For the first time Dean feels at peace, he feels safe. He rests his head on the ground that feels soft and liquid, like the top of the ocean and the sky above him is a warm shade of dawn. He falls asleep and dreams and the morning star watches over him.

* * *

Dean opens his eyes and looks up at the sky. For the first time in what must be years, Dean watches the sunrise, the sky pink and orange and the morning star high on the horizon. His breath hitches and tears run down his temples because as much as Dean prays he is still in Hell, he can still smell the blood and death in the air, although far away.

He clears his voice and pushes himself up when the star speaks to him.

"Rest," it says, "you are safe here."

Dean lies down again and does.

* * *

"Where am I?" Dean asks and wonders if he's dreaming.

"This is my prison," the Star says. "This is my Hell."

_Pretty fucking luxurious compared to mine,_ Dean thinks and the Star chuckles.

"I'm glad you think so. It was a gift from my Father and my Brother."

Dean wonders what that means, how can Hell be a gift and then remembers Sam, hopefully alive and breathing somewhere above and maybe he understands.

"It is my punishment," the Star says, "and the last gift from a loving family."

Somehow, it sounds bitter and cynical.

Truth is, Dean is just tired. Exhausted, completely undone, broken and he just wants everything to be over, wishes he would just cease to exist. If he was at the top of his game Dean would wonder how is it that he's talking to a Star and how can a Star be in Hell and have a family but as it is he just mumbles, "a brother, huh? I had a brother."

"I know," the Star says, "I know everything. I admire your courage and resolution, your devotion to your family."

Dean doesn't dwell on it, he's too tired to think, stretched too thin to wonder.

"I wish my brother was a bit more like you," the Star says and they remain silent for a while.

* * *

The Star tells stories, some that Dean recognizes and some that he doesn't. The Star tells a story of Dean teaching Sam how to shoot and it sounds poetic, and Dean's pretty sure he should remember it, he's sure it's his memory and the Star is just his subconsciousness trying to remind him.

_Talk about someting else,_ Dean thinks and closes his eyes and the Star does, switching to other stories, stories of Itself and Its brother watching the world from above, millenniums ago.

* * *

"I miss my brother," Dean breaks the silence that lasted way too long. He wants the Star to answer, yearns for someone to talk to. It's been so long since he used his voice for anything else than pained screams and choked off refusals.

"So do I," the Star says. "Such is our punishment."

"I want to see him, make sure he's alright," Dean says, "my little brother."

"I have a feeling you will before the End comes," the Star says and Dean opens his eyes to look at the sky stuck in an unmoving, everlasting sunrise.

"It's already over," he says, resigned and weary, "this _is_ the end."

"No," the Star says, "this is just the beginning."

* * *

"My older brother abandoned me," the Star says and Dean listens, "without regrets or second thoughts. He betrayed me and hurt me, and I loved him so much."

"That sucks," Dean says and means it.

"Yes," the Star says. "You would have never done that to your brother. My brother thinks you are alike, but you are not. You are much more loyal then he ever was."

"I would never hurt my little brother," Dean says and swallows. He hasn't moved for days and sleeps even in his dreams but he's still as tired as when he got here. Even talking is too much effort.

The Star remains silent after that.

* * *

"Why are you here?" Dean asks.

"Just like you – I loved my family too much," the Star answers and Dean mumbles a silent apology. What he's apologizing for he doesn't know.

* * *

"They are coming for you," the Star says and Dean sits up. His whole body feels disconnected, like it's not his at all, like it's a boneless heap pulled only by the strings of his will and no actual muscles.

"Who is?"

"The Demons, of course," the Stars says. "It's time for you to go, Dean."

"Go where?"

"Back on the rack, to fulfill your destiny."

Dean's breath catches in his throat and he rasps, "no."

"You have a mission, Dean. Don't be afraid."

And Dean isn't afraid – he is terrified. "I don't wanna leave," he whispers but the sky is already fading to black, the Star disappearing.

"But we will meet again, Dean Winchester, rather sooner than later," It says and then Dean isn't lying on top of the ocean but he's on fire again; the screaming is back, the smell of burnt skin and hair (his own) and Alistar is in front of him, hand on Dean's shoulder that burns like acid.

* * *

It doesn't take long for Dean to break after that and the Morning Star is listening when he does. It's not a screamed consent as expected; it's silent and broken as if Dean knew what he just caused.

"The righteous man is broken," the Star says, "and so is the first Seal. Do you hear, brother? Come and claim your vessel, send in the warriors."

And Michael does.


End file.
